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From April this year Barking and Dagenham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) will be in charge of local NHS budgets and they have launched a 12 week consultation on the future of the walk-in GP centre at Broad Street in Dagenham.

The CCG believe that the service is not being used for what is was originally intended for and is instead used by the public to get a second opinion or to save them waiting to see their own GP.

Local MP Jon Cruddas, who has been running an extended campaign on local healthcare in Dagenham and Rainham has highlighted his ‘disappointment’ in the proposals to close the Broad Street Walk-in Centre.

Jon commented: “I am completely against the proposed closure of the Broad Street walk-in centre. I think the closure will only exacerbate the problems we have had with local health care provisions. Following the recent CQC report on Queen’s Hospital I would argue that this will only make the situation worse. Queen’s is already over capacity and its resources are overstretched – the latest report highlighted this.

“The fact of the matter is that we need more investment and capacity in our local health service. Closing local clinics and walk-in centres is not the way to improve services across the board and it is sure to have a negative effect on Queen’s Hospital.”

The CCG believe that walk-in centres are not best for patients and have come to this decision from the outcome of a recent review which showed a third of patients who attend the walk-in centre do not need any treatment.

Under these new proposals the GP surgery at Broad Street would stay open. The CCG wants to know what local people think about the proposal to close the walk-in centre on the Broad Street site.

The recent report into Queens Hospital, by the Care Quality Commission, found that there were long waiting times in Accident and Emergency as well as being understaffed in relation to the number of patients they care for. Accident and Emergency at Queens was designed to care for 90,000 patients annually but patient numbers are now reaching 132,000 a year, with closures to local clinics this number is set to increase and the pressure on Queen’s Hospital is set to mount.